Who’d you rather see: an up and coming artist or a rock band on their umpteenth top up the pension fund tour claiming they can’t get no satisfaction at 75.

Surefire 3-year-old champion and Horse of the Year Justify is gone and there is no standout among the older horses. In fact, Las Vegas has established 3-year-old Good Magic as the early favorite for the Breeders’ Cup Classic. The good news is this makes races like the Travers and Saturday’s Whitney terrific betting races. Thanks to vulnerable favorites, strong cases can be mounted for several contenders in each of these races.

“Maybe by Friday (tomorrow)” the Manitoba Horse Racing Commission will release a ruling on the Winnipeg Sun Stakes that has been under investigation by the commission since the race was run last Wednesday, race steward Grant Buckoski told The Insider.

“We’re waiting for something but I can’t say what it is,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

The commission launched the investigation on the heels of many complaints about the way the race was run. “We have a long list,” Buckoski said.

The four-horse $27,500 race for fillies and mares saw Horse of the Year Escape Clause go to the lead in the one-mile race “cutting the opening quarter in a snoozer :25.3,” said race-caller Kirt Contois. Meanwhile, Tadaa, a horse that normally shows early speed and was ridden by last year’s leading jockey, Rohan Singh, was well behind the field.“Tadaa trailed to the stretch, advanced for third,” was the comment in the Equibase results chart.

Three days later a seemingly rejuvenated Tadaa came back to wire an allowance field. “Tadaa drew out under no urging to win with something left,” is the Equibase chart comment.

The first comment from Phil is congratulations to the Manitoba Horse Racing Commission for noticing that these two races stunk worse than relatives who have overstayed their welcome.

Racing secretaries right across North America need to remember that races need to be written for the betting public to maximize returns from the betting public rather than to please a couple of whiny trainers. Bettors would rather wager on 15 cockroaches running across Portage in mid January than 4 horses in a Stakes race.

Bettors got screwed twice. First in the Stakes race where a brave few took a flyer on a longshot hoping the other speed might hook the favourite. Second in the allowance when the PPs show a horse coming off a very lacklustre performance on three days rest that then runs off like a champion.

In Phil’s humble opinion you have 2 instances of race fixing. The trainer should be gone for life, the jockey for 5 years and the race secretary for a year.

Phil has a question:

Can the new CEO and Chair of Horse Racing Alberta steer the Alberta Titanic away from the iceberg before we end up like Manitoba with $25,000 stakes races and no black type races.

Does anybody in Alberta thoroughbred racing care.

Do we have enough participants in Alberta willing to put in rather than take out.

What does the Undertaker do.

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
Bruce LeeGold Dust Woman

This little missive was left under the wiper blades of most cars in the owners and trainers parking lot at Northlands Park early in July.

As Mucka Singh commented last week:

To the owners’ parking lot note artist, a good effort, but the apathy in the industry is at an all-time low. Like the Alberta total betting taking a hit of $10 million from $120 million/16 to $110 million/17 with Tenile and her abacus predicting $200 million in her 2015-2017 business plan/MISFIRE???

Phil’s had only 1 entry in his Top 10 list contest so far so maybe Mucka’s right. Mind you it’s tough for the thoroughbred industry in Alberta to be positive when it’s just barely survived the reign of terror of the jiggie loving Shirley McLellan and the water treading Rick LeLacheur.

Phil was expecting a flood of entries from the Hillbilly Harness Houseleague colony out at Lacombe with this sentiment:

1 – 10 Bring Shirley Back.

Interesting to note that the 2017 handle of $110 million was $82 million thoroughbred and $28 million harness. First task for the new CEO and Chair should be to ensure that the handle and slot revenues for purses are split the same way the handle is generated: okay jiggies get out them fingers and toes and do the arithmetic Phil will help you along divide 82 by 110 to figure out the percentage and you get 74.45% thoroughbred divide 28 by 110 to figure out the percentage and you get 25.55% Standardbred. That’s how the purse support from the handle and slot revenues should be divided between the thoroughbreds and jiggies after a portion is taken off for the Bee tracks and the other breeds.

Phil’s reprising from before Phil got lambasted by that bus:

To borrow from the people that JFK’s speech writers borrowed from what we need in the Alberta horse racing industry are persons who are less concerned about what the government can do for them and more anxious about what they can do to improve the horse racing industry in Alberta. As Phil has repeated ad infinitum the thoroughbred owners in the province of Alberta dip into their own resources to the tune of about $17,000.00 per horse they race per year. Rather than reward the thoroughbred owners for their support and contribution to the industry Horse Racing Alberta and Northlands Park take turns jabbing the sharp pointy stick in their eyes with one of the cruelest jabs being as HPBA Alberta executive Director Mat Monaco pointed out:

A financial policy change instituted by HRA for 2015 resulted in a decrease of the percentage allocation to “A” Thoroughbred Horsemen from 43.5% to 38.5% of the total purse grant. The Standardbred breed as well as Community racing were the recipients of the 5% lost by this Association. Had we received the same percentage allocation as had been received from Day 1 of HRA’s existence, the additional $700,000 would have translated into a 10 – 15% increase in overnite payments.

Phil’s given you No. 10 on the Top Ten list so you only gotta get the synapses firing for 9 more.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.

Dr. Seuss

Phil has a question:

Will the new CEO and Chair of Horse Racing Alberta be sinkers, water treaders or swimmers.

A celebration of life will be held August 9 that the Alliance Community Hall at 2.30 pm lunch to follow Everyone welcome.In lieu of flowers the family requests that donations be made to the battle river community foundation at info@brcf.ca or call 780-679-0449

Ted’s Celebration of Life will be held on August 13, 2018 at 2:00 pm in the Gasoline Alley Mezzanine Room (Heritage Park – 1900 Heritage Drive S.W., Calgary, AB). In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Ted’s honor to New Stride Thoroughbred Adoption Society (www.newstride.com).

Fans of thoroughbred racing can whine as much as they want about the lack of star power and the retirement of stars to the breeding shed, but they need to grow up, put on their big boy long pants and remember that sports of all ilks is Just business. If Karl Max was alive today he’d add a second half to his famous quote: and professional sports the crack cocaine.

The Raptors traded DeMar DeRozan, John Tavares fled the Island for the Leafs, LeBron James fled Cleveland for LA, the Oilers traded Gretzky. Life ain’t fair and neither is the business of sports. Get over it and move on. Phil heard that there’s a great field of 16 roaches running across Hastings tonight at 5:30.

Most coaches, certainly the many I’ve known in my life, would have figured out a solution that was discreet and kind. They almost always did. They too had gay players, shy players, anxious players, players who weren’t like the others, players with big problems at home, players with domineering or absent parents.

They helped those kids, accommodated them, made damn sure the others on the team toed the line.

If only Jesse Thompson had had one of those men as a coach he wouldn’t have needed to file a human rights complaint — and now, there wouldn’t be a whole new set of rules and regs tailored to 0.7 per cent of the population with issues that were only ever a problem for 0.7% of the hockey population. Oy.

Phil has a question:

Do any of the idiots that populate these PC boards and commissions understand what Margaret Thatcher was talking about:

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.

Would inclusion on the team not be better for the kid than exclusion.

Where are we going to find all these unpaid volunteer coaches who have the time to follow on the nitpicking rules.

One of Phil’s high school buddies’ dad was on the Employment Insurance appeal board for a number of years BPC (Before Political Correctness). Unlike the Alberta Racing Appeal Tribunal he understood that his job was to review the decisions and not substitute his own opinion so he denied most of the appeals and like Phil had a question: What would you do if there was no employment insurance. The response was always: get a job. And that’s what he’d tell them to do.

We need more toughness and less bubble wrap.

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.
John F. Kennedy

With lightning all around the upstate New York oval Aug. 4 as a deluge sent racegoers scurrying for cover, Mother Nature’s disregard for human plans and a resulting 41-minute rain delay brought anticipation for the 1 1/8-mile Whitney to another level.

And a couple of races later the even pricier Tatters to Riches held on to win an Allowance Optional Claiming $40,000.00 for his second lifetime win. The owners may want to apply to reverse his name to Riches to Tatters.

Phil was noticing that since he’s been sorta back the causticity still hasn’t returned.

Stay Tuned

It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses we must plant more trees.

5. Retiring race executive is rumoured to be looking for a assistant for job duties such as light housekeeping, cooking, gardening, wippet walking and must be frugal in spending his $$$,valid 2019 HRA license required to be considered for this foreign position.